Motor vehicles utilizing internal combustion engines pipe the exhaust under the vehicle, wherein the exhaust system is flexibly suspended from the vehicle underbody by one or more exhaust hanger assemblies. A typical exhaust hanger assembly uses flexible elements having low stiffness to support the exhaust pipe in combination with stiffer elements having higher resonant frequencies for attaching the exhaust hanger assembly to the underbody of the vehicle. Together, these elements serve to impede the transmission of noise and vibration from the exhaust system to the floor of the passenger compartment. In addition, the exhaust hanger assembly also prevents the transmission of heat from the exhaust system to the vehicle underbody.
As described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,877, a typical prior art exhaust hanger assembly for flexibly suspending an exhaust pipe from the vehicle underbody includes a combination of one or more bent rod members, flexible elements, and clamp or strap members, all of which extend downwardly from the vehicle underbody. The stiffer component for attachment to the vehicle underbody is typically fastened, such as by bolts, onto the outside of a supportive vehicle underbody component, such as the vehicle frame. For example, one common arrangement includes a first bent rod member having a bent end portion bolted to the outside of the frame of the vehicle, a second bent rod member having a bent end portion mounted to the exhaust pipe, and a flexible element having two holes, each receiving one of the two bent end portions of the first and second rod members. These typical prior art exhaust hangers are designed to flexibly suspend the exhaust pipe and to impede the transmission of unpleasant low frequency vibrations to the vehicle compartment by the stiffer vehicle attachment component.
By way of exemplification, a prior art exhaust hanger assembly 10 is depicted at FIG. 1. A pair of upper bent rod members 12a, 12b are connected at one end 12c to the vehicle underbody (not shown), and at the other end 12d to a respective resilient body of a pair of resilient bodies 14a, 14b. A lower bent rod member 16 is centrally connected to the resilient bodies 14a, 14b at a location separated from the connection of the upper bent rods 12a, 12b. The ends 14a, 14b of the lower bent rod member 16 are connected to the exhaust pipe 18.
While this form of exhaust hanger serves its purpose well, it suffers from degradation over time of the resilient body (typically rubber or rubber-like material), as well as the cost associated with the complexity and multiplicity of the components, as well as the assembly, of a typical exhaust hanger assembly.
Accordingly, what remains needed in the art is an improved exhaust hanger which does not have the deficiencies of known exhaust hanger assemblies.